Solar Installation Effectiveness

Today Woodlawn published the results of a multi-client project examining solar installation cost. We found U.S. residential PV dealers spent an average of $3.69 per Watt to perform installations. This includes all of the dealers’ installation-related costs. (Note: this is different from the price of residential solar to the consumer.)

In addition, we found:

Dealer gross margins averaged only 20% (using a standard set of costs)

By matching low cost dealers in each expense category, dealers could install for $2.13 to $2.59 per Watt

Use of microinverters appears to decrease design costs by about $0.06 per Watt